Hold Her Heart (Words of the Heart) Read Online Free Page B

confessed.
    “Oh, Ms. Pip’s not-so-secret garden. You need to see it in person to get the full feel of it. My mom likes it in the spring. She says there’s a sense of possibility in a spring garden. I actually like it better now. So many of Ms. Pip’s trees and plants change colors, it’s amazing. Come on.”
    I knew that going upstairs with a strange man wasn’t wise, but I didn’t feel any sense of danger emanating from Logan Greer. To be honest, it was hard to be nervous about a man if you knew he was wearing smiley face boxers under his shorts.
    So I followed him as he padded back up the staircase, his bare feet slapping on each tread. He led me back into the room and to the window.
    “There,” he said, pointing.
    From this window, I could see over the fence and into the backyard. It was a sea of color. Some of the branches had lost enough of their leaves that we could see through them. The ground below the trees was green fading to brown. There were pops of reds, oranges, and golds. I could barely make out the path that wove through the yard to the picnic table at the front next to the house.
    There was a fence that separated Piper’s yard from Ned’s, but the entire center section of the fence was missing. I could catch the edge of more fall-fading greenery spilling into the yard behind this house.
    Logan answered my unasked question about it. “When Ms. Pip and Ned got married and decided to keep this place, she started expanding her garden into his yard.” He pointed toward the back corner. “You should hear them every spring. She goes to the nursery, and he tells her she can’t possibly fit one more plant in either yard. She ignores him, and when they get home, he’s right there, helping her squeeze them in.”
    He pointed to a tree in Ned’s back corner. “I helped plant that chestnut tree. It’s a Chinese chestnut. The American ones got some disease and died off so most, if not all, that are left here aren’t the native ones.”
    It was a fair-sized little tree, so I asked, “You’ve known them a long time?”
    I was more anxious to hear about Ned and Piper than chestnuts.
    “I’ve known them since I was a kid,” he said.
    “How did you meet them?” I asked.
    Logan looked at me and said, “I’ll tell you how I met Ms. Pip if you’re really interested. But at this moment, I don’t think you really want to hear my story.”
    “I don’t?” I found it cheeky that this man presumed to know me well enough to know what I wanted or didn’t want.
    “You’re stalling,” he said simply.
    “I beg your pardon?” I asked sharply.
    Rather than look rueful, he laughed. He stopped short as he looked at me. I figured my frown was daunting, but he ruined that assumption when he grinned and said, “You sounded like my grandmother . I beg your pardon? ” He laughed again.
    “I . . .” I didn’t know what to say to that, and that one syllable was as far as I went.
    “I’m not sure why Ned brought you here without Ms. Pip knowing, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to hear about how I met them. You’re wound up tight over it, though. If you really need to stall, I’ll tell you how I met her now, or we can do it later. Or you can tell me why you’re meeting her.”
    “Why would I tell that to a stranger?”
    “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who doesn’t know you.” He shrugged. “Either way, I’ll be around.”
    He led me back down the stairs and walked me to the front door.
    I don’t want to say that Logan pushed me out, but he made it apparent that he wasn’t going to aid my stalling.
    “Don’t forget, you’re welcome to stay. There are extra bedrooms, and Ms. Pip will vouch for my character,” were his parting words before he shut the door on me.
    I looked across the driveway at Piper’s porch.
    Then slowly, I walked across the drive and to the porch. On one side of the door were comfortable-looking wicker chairs. They had red-and-blue plaid cushions and a